Page 10 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“Neither do I,” he admitted. “I’d like to know how he found me. He wants me to do a job for him. Wants me to hold up”—he stopped himself before he could sayhis father—“some aristo. The job, to be frank, sounds like the sort of thing I’d have done in a heartbeat, but I’ve never worked on my own and now I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He gestured vaguely at his leg and hoped she understood. “But I want to know who he is and why he came to me. It would help me put the matter to rest,” he said. “He says his name is Edward Percy.”
“Edward Percy,” she repeated. “I’ll find out whatever I can.”
He walked home and let himself into his dark shop, feeling something he told himself wasn’t anticipation.
Chapter9
The girl entered Kit’s with the same air of bashful self-consciousness with which she had answered the door to the brothel a few days earlier. A hush fell over the coffeehouse at the sight of her, as not many women ventured into coffeehouses, and never alone unless they were selling their favors. Kit watched in amusement as his patrons tried to figure out if this pretty, meek girl could possibly be a prostitute.
“Mistress Flora,” Kit said when she approached the counter.
“Mr.Webb,” she answered, her cheeks flushing, and Kit longed to ask whether she was able to do that at will. “I have a message for you from my mistress.” From between the folds of her cloak, she withdrew a sealed letter and held it out to Kit in an immaculately gloved hand.
As Kit broke the seal, he could smell the scent of rosewater that always surrounded Scarlett, and he wondered if she deliberately scented her stationery or if it simply picked up the scent from being near her. He’d bet on the former: nothing Scarlett ever did was by accident. The missive was brief and direct.
“There is no Edward Percy,” the letter read. “Nobody by that name has attended any of the usual schools. No Edward Percyhas ever been presented at court. No Edward Percy is known to any of the servants at any of the great houses. He could, of course, be the son of a merchant or some other personage who has taken to dressing like his betters, but in that case, I’d be even more certain to have heard about him. Yours, S.”
Kit frowned. He had hoped that Scarlett would have been able to tell him something that would lessen his curiosity, not stoke it even higher. Kit had always liked a riddle, a puzzle, a challenge. Even robbery—hell, especially robbery—had been a sort of puzzle. Does this baronet travel with a purse full of coin? Are his outriders armed? At what time would he be likely to reach that ever-so-convenient bend in the Brighton road? How many men would Kit need in order to see the job safely done? How should they get away once the job was over? Avoiding the hangman satisfied some part of Kit’s brain in the way unpicking a stubborn knot might. Now, a year after planning his last robbery, it occurred to Kit that some of the challenge may have come from how persistently drunk he had been in those days. It was more than possible that sober he’d need more than a simple holdup to occupy his mind. He might need more of a mystery.
He was interrupted by the sound of Flora delicately clearing her throat. Now, why had Scarlett sent this girl to him? She had boys she used as couriers. There was no reason to send one of her prettiest and greenest girls out on an errand, unattended. Except—of course. The whole point of this was to display Flora in front of as many men as possible. Scarlett was all but having an auction.
“We’re putting our best merchandise in the shop window today, are we?” Kit murmured. In answer, Flora ducked her head and looked up with a sly wink. Well, she was in on it, then, andthat put his mind at ease. “I’m meant to walk you home, aren’t I?” Scarlett would know that Kit would never let this girl out into the street on her own. While he thought it more than likely that she could take care of herself, walking her home was a small enough favor.
“If you please, sir,” she answered. “But you needn’t do so until you’re ready to close up the shop. I have a book to occupy myself.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Take a seat and I’ll bring you coffee and some cake.”
He watched as she sat near the window, where she would be seen by everybody walking past and everybody within. When he brought her coffee and a plate of seedcakes, he huffed out a laugh when he realized that the book she had brought with her was the Bible. He couldn’t help but grin. He hoped she landed herself a lord and took him for every penny she could.
He was still smiling when he heard footsteps approach the table where he brewed the coffee. Looking up, he saw a now-familiar wigged head and powdered face. The theme of the day, he noticed, was rose: rose silk waistcoat, rose ribbon at the nape of his neck, and he knew that if he looked down, he’d see stockings with rose clocks adorning the sides. He was predictable, orderly, this man who had taken the decidedly outlandish step of attempting to hire a highwayman to rob his father.
Only when he saw Percy’s mouth quirk up at the sides into a grin matching his own did Kit realize he was still smiling like a fool. He also remembered that Percy wasn’t Percy at all.
“You lied about your name,” Kit said, pointing a finger at the other man’s rose-clad chest.
“Did I?” the man asked. “I can’t recall.” He spoke the words as if he were sharing a private joke, rather than defending an accusation of lying. Kit had the strangest wish to be in on the jest, to know what had stolen away the man’s arrogance and replaced it with a smile that managed to be both wry and soft.
“Why are you here?” Kit asked.
“So suspicious, Mr.Webb. I’ve become rather fond of your coffee. Isn’t that reason enough to visit your establishment?”
“It’s very inconvenient, you know,” Kit said, the words leaving his mouth before he could think better of it, “not to know with what name to think of you.”
“Is it? You must think of me often if that poses such an inconvenience.” His arrogance was back in force now, written in the lift of his eyebrow and the way he leaned forward toward Kit, his hands on the table, pushing into Kit’s space ever so slightly. Kit didn’t lean away—this was his coffeehouse and he had all the power in this situation, no matter how he felt. But he could smell lavender and powder, could see that the man’s eyes were the dark gray of wet cobblestones, could tell that the patch he had affixed over his lip wasn’t a circle, as Kit had assumed, but rather a tiny heart. It was, perhaps, the heart that did Kit in—the utter ridiculousness of a heart-shaped fake birthmark ought to have made Kit loathe the man but it achieved quite a different result.
It was too much to hope that Percy (Kit had resigned himself to thinking of him as Percy, as the alternative was a mysterious blankness that posed the danger of becoming as peculiarly compelling as every other detail about the man, whereas Percy was a very boring and ordinary name) hadn’t noticed Kit’s reaction. “I knew it,” Percy said, leaning forward even further. Kit still refused to retreat, telling himself that it was because he would not cede a single inch of ground, but even as he formulated the thought, he knew it to be a lie.
“I don’t do that,” Kit said, because, evidently, he was an idiot.
“Do what, Mr.Webb? I hadn’t realized we had reached that stage of the proceedings.”
“Uh,” Kit said, eloquently. “I don’t—”
“But you want to,” Percy said, undeterred and unabashed. He helped himself to a seedcake from the basket that Kit had forgotten to put away. He took a small bite, chewed thoughtfully, and then brought a lace-trimmed handkerchief to his mouth. “Quite good. Why haven’t I had any cakes on my previous visits? I spent hours here without seeing so much as a crumb.”
Kit snatched the basket away and put it under the table. “I save them for the customers I like.”
“I think I’m shaping up to be your favorite customer ever,” Percy said, leaning close and taking another bite of cake. A crumb lingered on the swell of his lower lip, and Kit couldn’t tear his gaze from it. When Percy swiped the crumb away with one flick of his pink tongue, Kit thought his heart might stop.
